CHAPTER 1: Introductions
High school didn't surprise Izuku at all. In fact, after only a week, it felt as much as middle school had. All his teachers, of course, already knew he was quirkless and did nothing to hide his 'condition' from the other students.
Hell, Izuku's homeroom teacher had even outed Deku on the first day, when he made everyone introduce themselves with their name, quirk, and favorite hobby.
At least Kacchan's not there, Izuku reminded himself as he stepped into the night train that would take him home to Hosu. There weren't many people onboard when he found a place to sit, which was pretty standard for the late hour.
Without thinking about it he glanced around the car to make sure there weren't any high school students or villains he recognized before he fished his notebook and pen out of his bag and got to work on his latest commission.
A year after his mom died Izuku had taken up using his bilingual skills to become an online quirk analyst for Japanese and English speaking people, hoping to save up for college. He was lucky that he had managed to build such an active and unassuming rapport with so many strangers before the Usoros had abandoned him.
The money he regularly got from his foster family was barely enough to cover Izuku's rent so he'd immediately needed to start accepting more requests, filling his schedule as much as he could to make ends meet.
Now he had more clients coming in than ever before. People talked about him in a growing number of quirk related forums. His online presence was beginning to spread out of control and even though he used multiple throwaway accounts the attention was making him nervous.
A anxious shudder passed through the boy when he imagined what his so-called 'fans' would do to him if they found out he didn't have a quirk. The lynch mob they'd form would be enormous…
If he could get a normal job he'd pull the reins on his public activity until people eventually lost interest. But he couldn't hide his quirklessness in the real world. It was on his ID, as was required for everyone in Japan.
The boy sighed and hissed, arching a portion of his bruised lower back away from the seat. One of his bullies hadn't liked it when Izuku told him how weak his quirk was, instead of cowering and sniveling like they'd both sort of expected him to do.
His brain-to-mouth filter was slipping a lot lately. He wondered if maybe his growing pain tolerance had something to do with it. Or maybe it was getting hit in the head a few times too many…
At the next stop Izuku looked up by chance and locked eyes with the last person he'd expected to see at this hour.
"Kacchan? Shouldn't you be in bed?" Case in point.
Kacchan blazed into the car with such force Izuku wondered if the blonde had somehow used his quirk invisibly.
"You–!" he screamed and grabbed for the orphan's coat.
Without thinking, Izuku threw himself to the ground, angled away from Kacchan, and sloppily stood. He stumbled; one foot almost slipped completely out from under him with the awkward way he clung to his bag and notebook. He dove through the doors just before they closed and almost literally rolled head over heels across the station floor as the train moved on behind him.
He sat there for a long time, catching his breath, and slowly processing what had just happened; how narrowly he'd escaped Kacchan's ruthless torment.
I really shouldn't keep calling him that, the green haired boy thought as a station officer stormed towards him, yelling about how he needed to be behind the yellow safety line.
Yup.
High school really wasn't that different from middle school.
And he probably shouldn't have hoped it would be.
Izuku encountered a strange man on his morning jog a few days later.
He was smaller than Izuku by perhaps a head, clearly old, and lying facedown on the ground in a puddle of coagulated blood. Alarmed and confused, the analyst looked around once before he ran and knelt down at the man's side. He was wearing a white and yellow costume with a long yellow cape, and he had a black mask like the ones the first American superheroes wore before the rise of quirks.
"S-sir?" he began, making sure his voice was as loud and as clear as he figured was appropriate to the situation. "Can you hear me?" The man didn't respond.
Izuku was about to feel for a pulse when he noticed something strange about the blood. It wasn't the right color for the stage of coagulation and, using a small stick to poke it, it hardly seemed coagulated enough to appear as thick as it did. In addition to all of that it didn't smell like blood either.
"Is this ketchup?" he asked himself, getting a whiff.
Glancing down at the man again, Izuku noticed the steady rise and fall of his back and allowed himself to feel a bit relieved by it.
"Hello?" he called to him again. The old man didn't appear particularly pale but Izuku would probably call for an ambulance anyway.
"I'm alive!"
Izuku scrambled back, his screech catching mid-inhale and sounding like a startled rodent with a smoking problem. As he devolved into a clumsy fit of coughs to clear the saliva he'd accidentally inhaled, the old man sat back on his bottom and looked around like he didn't know where he was but was perfectly okay with his surroundings.
"Oh? Is that who I think it is?" an abrasive, adenoidal voice shouted from further down the street.
Izuku would have sworn out loud if his dumb bilingual brain could remember the correct word in either language. How could he have forgotten who was scheduled to patrol this area today?
Heat Seeker approached them with the usual swagger in his step, impossibly narrow eyes locked on the quirkless orphan's face. Izuku responded by jumping into an offensive stance and readying himself for another brutal battle by the pro hero.
Behind Izuku, the old man pointed at the hero and shouted, "Who're you?!"
—Hero name: Heat Seeker. Real name: Sakai Akio. 24. 4th year as a pro. Handsome and charismatic– climbing the popularity polls quickly —
"Oh ho ho!" Heat Seeker chortled, stopping a few feet away and putting his hands on his narrow hips, "I got a call saying there was a villain nearby but I should've known it was just you again."
Izuku didn't reply, instead glancing back at the old man. He'd stood up, quaking like a leaf and shuffling through the remains of what must have been his groceries before he fell on them. He hardly seemed aware of what was going on.
"Leave him alone, Heat Seeker. He's just an old man," the orphan warned.
—Quirk: Missile. He can achieve incredibly fast bursts of speed by launching his body forward like a sailfish. Forms a brutal combo with Concrete Buster, the enormous hero who can form concrete around his arms and legs–
Steam flew from the pro's eight inch long nose, his fusiform eyes glinting in the light. A heavy thunk sounded from within his chest and a series of pops crackled from his flexing spine as he lifted his violet sail-like dorsal fin.
This was dangerous.
He was in a bad mood.
"Why should I care about that?" he sneered, "the dodgery old fool looks like he's already on his last legs."
The blood rushed out of Izuku's face. He risked a quick glance behind him to see the man tying his plastic grocery bag around the end of his cane. Heat Seeker had obviously already decided he was going to attack. It was just a matter of when. The boy's mind continued through a battle analysis.
—Strengths: (1) Enhanced eyesight: Flicker Fusion Frequency equivalent to a bird of prey. Possibly ≥ 90 HzPS. His namesake comes from his ability to stay locked on a target no matter what—
The freckled orphan still tried to talk him down, "someone will find out if you hurt him. You'll get suspended."
—(2) Streamlined body: extreme ectomorph – less drag gives him the ability to achieve greater speeds. Flexible. Dorsal fin does not contribute. (3) Elongated, bill-like nose: sharp point and rigid skeletal structure. Used like a lance. (4) Hardened skull—
Heat Seeker's ear-to-ear grin split and stretched his well-proportioned face into something ugly. His third eyelids twitched. It was incredibly unfortunate that Heat Seeker was as intelligent as he was cruel.
"Midoriya Izuku, a quirkless slum-boy from Hosu traveled to Yamanashi seeking easier prey, is caught threatening a poor old man for his wallet. The brave pro hero Heat Seeker rushed to the scene but it was too late. The evil Midoriya-san could not be reasoned with, resisted apprehension, and attacked Heat Seeker, forcing him to kill in self-defense." Heat Seeker bent forwards, dorsal fin fanning out before settling flat against his back again, "quirkless vermin like you don't live long anyway. I'm doing both of you a favor!"
Normally, Izuku would book it and lose the guy in the winding labyrinthine of the underground city beneath their feet. But the last time he'd tried to lead the human missile away when there was someone he was trying to protect–
Tears collected in Izuku's burning eyes, obscuring his vision. He shook them away with a shuddering breath and a hot flash behind his eyes of the little furry body he'd left behind to die.
Not again.
Weaknesses: (1)—
A second before Heat Seeker launched himself, Izuku dropped down. He aimed a fist upwards and stood suddenly, catching the hero in the throat when he tried to lance him.
Izuku's thoughts flew by so quickly they were almost more feeling than coherent words.
— Dorsal-ventral rigidity occurs upon activation of quirk to accommodate increased range of lateral flexion. Restricts upwards and downwards body movement to limit risk of vertebral misalignment during battle. (2) Expanded ventral blindness, can't see underneath himself—
Izuku used his momentum to add extra force to the hit, pushing the pro off his trajectory. Surprised, Heat Seeker overcompensated and smashed into a chain link fence.
(3) Lancing technique ineffective without proper distance.
Heat Seeker wasn't practiced in hand to hand combat either, so Izuku stuck well inside the man's personal space. He was almost up against his chest. When Heat Seeker tried to push Izuku away to give himself room to land a hit, Izuku redirected the blow and unbalanced the narrow man. Then, the analyst quickly took the opportunity to hopefully incapacitate his assailant with one kick.
Izuku blasted his shin into the human missile's crotch as hard as he could.
He didn't waste time watching Heat Seeker keel over and wail. Instead he turned to grab the old man and run. From there they'd either find one of Izuku's chutes and lose the pro hero underground, or, revert to relying on group safety by finding the nearest and most populated street.
Neither was necessary in the end.
"So you're the little agency rat terrorizing everyone in my neighborhood."
Whirling around, half-wild with the energy of a fight and the fear of a rescue, Izuku found the old man standing on Heat Seeker's back with all the confidence of a… of a…
Of a veteran pro hero.
Realization slapped him across the face and almost swept him off his feet.
Of course, Izuku thought after he'd called for the police using the old man's phone, why not?
Izuku stayed away from Yamanashi for the rest of the week to avoid the old man, who'd introduced himself as Gran Torino. He almost regretted it, however, because he had several more close encounters with Kacchan instead.
Already Izuku'd had to change which route he used to get to the café he did his homework in and he had a feeling it wouldn't be long before he was found there, too. It was as if his old childhood friend was actively seeking him out. Would Kacchan stop at the edge of Musutafu or would he keep chasing him until he found out where Izuku was living?
An enormous snarl from his stomach reminded him that he was going to have to do something about dinner. Izuku groaned back at it as he slipped through shady alleyways and ducked underground on his way home. Barely two weeks into the school year and he was already hiding during lunch instead of eating.
I wish I could just sleep, he complained to himself, I don't want to eat.
It was almost midnight and he had to use his shortcuts if he wanted to avoid the more territorial yakuza policing the streets.
A new faction of trigger dealers had arrived in downtown Hosu recently and they quickly became the most aggressive. They were obviously from a much larger group, likely the Shie Hassaikai, but people said they weren't following the right code or morals.
Izuku thought they weren't following any of either.
"Hey, brat," a scratchy voice called to him.
Not tonight, thanks, Izuku thought to himself and started deliberately power walking towards his nearest chute. A figure intercepted him before he could dive back underground, however, and he reared back to avoid them.
In a disorienting twist where he knew the ground should have been, Izuku fell through the pavement and crashed into some weeds. Dizzy and alarmed he took in his entirely new surroundings to find they were nothing like the street he'd been on not a second prior. He was sitting under an abandoned bridge, presumably in the middle of nowhere judging by the wild state of disrepair. Grass didn't grow that tall in the city.
"You must be the one they call Deku."
Izuku jumped to his feet and slid into a defensive position before he'd even finished processing his situation. A stiff man in a fitted suit stood a few yards away, his face obscured by what looked like clouds of purple gas rising out from below his tight metal collar. The yellow lights where his eyes should've been seemed to somehow appraise the young analyst.
"My name is Kurogiri and this–" a swathe of the same substance suddenly bathed the wall at the man's side. A person stepped out of it shortly before it dispersed upwards. "–is Shigaraki."
Izuku didn't reply. Kurogiri obviously had some kind of teleportation quirk and, judging by the twelve hands clinging to his body, Shigaraki's had something to do with touch. Looking at him made Izuku think he was Kurogiri's opposite. Shigaraki was unkempt, hunched over with his hands in his pockets, and as far as he could tell with a massive hand obscuring it the man's face was as dry as his voice.
One was an emitter-mutant subtype and the other was either a transformation or another emitter, assuming the hands could be operated independently. With the right coordination the two could be a devastating combo.
While fit for his age, Izuku was still hopelessly outmatched. These people weren't everyday school bullies or yakuza punks. They were desensitized killers.
Izuku could be kidnapped and tortured and nobody would ever so much as look for him. He couldn't run or hide and he wouldn't win in a fight. They'd backed him into a corner and he was afraid in a way he wasn't entirely familiar with. It was more intense, more consequential. A shudder ran its course through him.
Unfortunately for everyone, however, Izuku didn't really react to fear the way he was supposed to anymore.
"What's with the hands?" he asked Shigaraki.
If a god of fate really existed then she was giving him a moment of silence.
"Shut up, NPC, or I'll add yours to my family. It's been awhile since I had new ones," Shigaraki sneered. The man's anger thickened the air like miasma and made Izuku instinctively buckle down on his defensive stance.
"Please, don't mind him. He wanted to meet you," Kurogiri spoke, his silky voice specious and bewitching. It was evident that he was the more diplomatic of the two.
Izuku was thankful when he decided to get down to business. "We represent the League of Villains. Your skill has impressed our master and he'd like you to join us."
Shigaraki's posture visibly stiffened and he reached up to scratch his neck. Making a mental note of the reaction, the quirk analyst narrowed his eyes at the twisting, smokey head.
"Why? What's the endgame?" he asked cautiously, feigning interest.
Izuku's questions seemed to amuse the broody villain at Kurogiri's side, his soft snickering bouncing eerily through the unnatural stillness under the bridge. The hand-man's body language switched into something open and energetic so fast it made Izuku feel a little whiplashed.
"To end the symbol of peace – to kill All Might!" Shigaraki declared dramatically, flicking his head to the side to peer at Izuku through his unruly bangs. The mania in his eyes caught the light in a way that made it seem as if it were coming from within him and not from the moon.
"That's a big goal," Izuku muttered in English, patronizing. Shigaraki stepped forward lowering his head to lock eyes with the boy and for a moment Izuku was afraid that he'd understood.
"I was right, Kurogiri. This one is interesting."
What a wonderfully alarming sentence, the analyst thought sarcastically and bit down on his rising panic. His palms were starting to feel clammy so, as subtly as he could, he took a deep breath.
"Our master feels that you could help us achieve that goal," Kurogiri told Izuku, "he's seen your skills as a quirk analyst."
"I'm hardly an expert. Why not ask a proper professional?" Izuku countered.
Kurogiri's eyes narrowed non-threateningly, looking as interested as a man without a face could. "They have something to lose that you don't."
"Is it a will to live?"
On the outside, Izuku might've looked cheeky if not for the aggressive blanching of his face and the sweat picking up at his hairline. Internally, he was making a sound not unlike a screaming hamster. You are not in a position to be saying these things, you quirkless idiot. What are you trying to do?! It's obvious these guys have killed before!
"Is this a game to you, NPC?" Shigaraki hissed, flexing his hands and reaching up to scratch at his neck again.
"Shigaraki." Kurogiri's voice held a warning.
Izuku swallowed, his throat clicking audibly as he rushed to carry the conversation away from his thoughtless blunder, "so you want me to analyze hero quirks for you, to help you take down All Might?"
"More or less, yes."
"And you want me to give you an analysis on All Might's quirk?" Izuku recalled his hero's emaciated figure the day they'd met. He remembered the gnarled webs of scar tissue and purple bruises along his side, the old wound's shape reminiscent of a fist through drywall. Its presence and All Might's time limit changed things so much Izuku had needed to make an entirely new analysis.
All Might was the very first person he'd ever done a QA on. It was where Izuku had started. And while he could give anyone a – in his opinion – rough breakdown of their quirk on the spot, he could go on about his favorite hero for hours…
"Yes," Kurogiri answered. Then he ominously continued, the light under the tunnel growing a shade darker as a cloud passed over the moon, "if you haven't got one already." The man didn't appear to do anything that could've changed the atmosphere as significantly as Izuku felt. Aside from the flickering of the thick, purple fumes around his head he didn't so much as twitch.
And yet somehow the air became cold and dense, the dark around him suddenly seeming too empty for its growing depth.
Holding on to his control, Izuku kept his expression schooled and his posture unchanged when he met Kurogiri's eyes. He breathed slowly, calmly. He was ready to drop back into offensive or defensive at any moment, even if he didn't stand a chance – even if he was worthless and unneeded.
This was suddenly about a lot more than just Izuku.
"You said you knew who I was, didn't you?" Kurogiri narrowed his eyes at Izuku's rhetorical question, "does that mean you read whatever paragraph they gave you or did you skim it?" The QA's words caught the villains by surprise, if their silence was anything to go by. "I assume that you skimmed it or you wouldn't actually be here," he said, setting his shoulders and lifting his chin before he spoke again. "I don't sell pro hero quirk analyses. Not to anyone. Not even the heroes when they ask. And if All Might himself asked for one I would still say 'no.' I will not negotiate on that."
Kurogiri hummed, "and yet you still write them."
"For fun," Izuku quipped, "and I already said I'm not a professional."
"Then why hide them?" Shigaraki asked this time.
Izuku realized they were trying to back him into a verbal wall. "Because they keep getting destroyed," he spat, then turned his eyes back to Kurogiri, "you have my answer."
While the latter appraised him as if he were weighing other options, Shigaraki suggested, "we can take them by force, then."
"Very well–" Kurogiri started to say.
Instead of cowering the analyst immediately dropped back into his defensive stance, as if it would do any good. The hand-villain lunged for him so quickly it made the distance between them seem shorter than it was. Izuku held his ground even as Shigaraki reached out for him.
The quirkless orphan didn't need to think. He'd already decided that if he was going to die here then he would do so fighting back, no matter how useless the effort.
But just before the villain could grab him a portal appeared in the air and his hand disappeared into it. Izuku resisted the urge to put more distance between them even as Shigaraki pulled back to scowl at his partner.
"Calm down," Kurogiri said, though it was unclear which one of them the order was directed at. Izuku watched the man's body appeared to dissolve into a semi-amorphous mist, clothing at all. Before vanishing completely he opened another portal for Shigaraki and, to Izuku, said, "we will take our leave, for now. You will know when the offer has been rescinded."
Thank you everyone for the absolutely overwhelming support so far. I'm so excited to get started! :)
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